I already know that I'll get back about HALF the money I paid in (unless I live to see 110 which seems unlikely). Even if I stored my money in a simple interest savings account I'd get a better return on my retirement fund.
I gave it a try but it said my RAID 2+0 (stripe) configuration won't let me access the SMART data. Oh well. I'll just off load everything onto an external USB drive so when this PC dies in 2010 or 2011, I can immediately hop to my laptop without loss.
I know you Americans are so in love with your wasteful lifestyle that you can rationalise to the most extreme not using innovations to cut down on consumption, like hybrid cars are gay and all the religious issues with CFLs.
Over the last five years or so, I've noticed more-and-more Europeans are acting like the so-called "rude Americans" they despise. Congratulations.
Anyway to address your point, a lot of the CFL complaints aren't coming from the U.S. but from the EU - due to the sudden requirement that any bulb over 60 must be a CFL. Europeans are discovering the inherent CFL flaws for themselves.
Okay this about the 5th post that said "Don't buy cheap; pay more for better quality." Well they bulbs I've used so far cost $1- for 3, or about $3.33 each. If I go to a $10 CFL then I'm not really saving any money versus buying a 20 cent incandescent at the grocery store. The energy savings don't compensate for the much-higher expense.
I've got two 60 watt bulbs in my kitchen ceiling, side-by-side. One is the standard incandescent and the other is a 15 watt "equivalent" CFL. You can tell just by looking that the CFL is not as bright even after an hour of usage.
Plus when it's cold, the incandescent is immediately bright while the CFL is so dim you can look directly at it, and not have to squint. It's turned-on but essentially dark. All my Philips CFLs are like that.
My first CFL which cost about $25 when I first got it (1990s) is also still working. It's the *current* CFLs that are being cheaply made($3 or less) which often die less than a year after purchase, or else provide POS dim lighting. .
>>>There's a big difference between religion and relying on a reasonably unbiased testing company like consumer reports.
Yes that's true, but if you've got 1 million people scattered around the nation complaining about premature CFL failures, it's kinda foolish to sit there and say, "Unless I read it in Consumer Reports it didn't happen." That kinda of response reminds me of when hundreds of thousands of Toyota minivan engines started failing due to oil overheating/sludging. Toyota too refused to believe the evidence right in front of their faces. Like an ostrich sticking it head in the sand. (Then the U.S. government stepped-in and basically forced Toyota to replace the engines for free, or else face prosecution.)
>>>Your bias against CFLs approaches religion more.
I can't help that CFLs have frequent failures. I started-out telling everyone, "Buy CFLs; reduce your electricity usage and save money." Then I got hit with the reality of CFLs failing all over the place, not just in my house, but all over the place. I started in one position, and changed the other as evidence mounted. Any good engineer does the same when he observes an obvious flaw in a machine or design. Only a fool would continue to say "CFLs are great" in the face of mounting evidence that they are not.
At this point, having observed first hand the flaws, I think incandescents are superior over CFLs. Yeah they use a *little* more wattage, but their very simplicity (a glowing resistor) makes them extremely robust for a wide, wide range of applications.
>>>"No thank you" next time I travel and they ask to search
Good luck with that. The guy in this audio recording tried the same tactic, first with the TSA and then some cops, when they demanded to search his cash box ("Where'd you get all this money?"). They had no constitutional warrant, but still they said they can stop Him from entering the airplane. Laws don't matter when the uniformed men on the street can detain you at will.
So how many billions of dollars will U.S. and EU citizens waste trying to get their wiring up to spec? Sounds like the typical "penny wise; dollar foolish" paradigm. Rather than helping save money or the environment, I predict CFLs will end-up being worse.
And as you (and others) are telling these stories about Unsatisfactory CFLs, the environmentalists are going "La la la we can't hear you."
I bought a hybrid car are few years ago, and of course started hanging-out with our green-thinking people, and it amazes me how close-minded these types are. If I say something like, "my car's battery drained empty last week," or "Yeah my CFLs only lasted 6 months," they literally start insulting me and saying I'm at fault. They don't want to hear anything negative.
So "la la la" they go with their fingers stuck in their ears.
I have 3 Lights of America CFLs laying right next to me. They started flickering only a few months after install, and died less than a year later. They should have lasted at least 5 years according to the warranty.
My GE CFLs come on nice-and-bright but they are limited in usage, because they are "swirls" and most of my lights don't accept swirls. They require traditional round bulbs.
My Philips CFLs provide that nice round bulb, but they are slow to reach full brightness, which is rather annoying. The 60-watt-equivalent bulb hanging upside-down in my kitchen is sometimes so dim, it looks like a brown dwarf star... barely any light at all.
In brief: - CFLs hate temperature extremes. CFLs hate dimmers. CFLs hate being turned on and off. - The savings on CFLs is trivial. I'm not seeing smaller monthly bills. - In fact I'm actually *wasting* money because of failed experiments with the LOA and Philips bulbs.
We've not being seeing widespread failure of Ipods or other keydrives, even though they use the same F-RAM technology. I'm kinda surprised to hear any reports of failure in the new solid state PC drives, unless it's an issue of making the cells too small to be reliable.
Aside - I have two traditional hard drives in my PC. They've been spinning almost-nonstop since 2003. Any idea how much longer I have until they crash?
Aside #2 from the Summary -
- The savings on CFLs is trivial. I might switch my bulb from 40 to 10 watts, but I still have a 10,000 watt heat pump running. I'm not seeing smaller monthly bills.
- CFLs hate temperature extremes. CFLs hate dimmers. In practical terms this means CFLs can not be used in 80-90% of present fixtures, like those that are enclosed (heat kills CFL electronics) or outside (too cold to light) And I bought a so-called "dimmable CFL" which died 5 minutes after I installed it in my living room dimmer switch.
- CFLs hate being turned on and off. Rapid cycling makes them die even faster than an incandescent bulb (as stated in the summary). So you've spent 5 times as much for a bulb than doesn't last any longer.
- CFLs have a warm-up time. The 60-watt-equivalent bulb hanging upside-down in my kitchen is sometimes so dim, it looks like a brown dwarf star... barely any light at all. It takes 3-4 minutes to finally reach full brightness.
All Linus did was provide *initial quality* of the gadget. That tells us nothing about long-term user. Perhaps his shiny new Intel drive will fail next year.
Aside -
I have two traditional hard drives in my PC. They've been running almost-nonstop since 2003. Any idea how much longer I have until they crash?
Oh definitely. AFTER the debt is paid-off, then I'd cut the taxes. It doesn't make sense to cut taxes while you're still carrying 11 trillion dollars in Chinese loans, but after they're paid off, then yes reduce taxation.
That's precisely how Rome transformed into a feudal society. The lower and middle classes, unable to pay their taxes, sold their property and themselves to wealthy landlords. Over about 200 years time the landlords became "lords" and the people living on the land became "serfs".
The summary I submitted originally said, "Its advent in 1995 was a sign of the rising 'Internet for everyone' era, when most users connection speeds were a mere 14.4 or 28.8k." It was specific.
Well I just bought an AMD X2 desktop for $300. If I could get Max OS 10.6 to run on that machine, rather than buy the $1100 Macintosh, then YES apple should be worried. That would represent a major loss in income for their company.
>>>Funny, then, that the method of travel which you insist is the safest actually results in the most deaths per mile traveled...
Yes but *per trip* the car is safer. I want to know what are my odds of dying every time I sit inside a car, train, or plane. The odds for the car *for each trip* is lower.
- Subway/metro driver using cellphone rear-ends another train in D.C. - kills several passengers
- Airplane drivers using laptops - fortunately nothing happened but it could have. A few years ago the same event caused a plane to miss a runway and killed most of the passengers.
I prefer to have my own car, with my own hands on the wheel, because I trust myself more than I trust some underpaid stranger. I'll take an airplane if it's long-distance, but if it's within 1-2 day's drive (Example Oklahoma City to Baltimore) then I'll just do it myself.
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I hate the Social Security Administration more.
I already know that I'll get back about HALF the money I paid in (unless I live to see 110 which seems unlikely). Even if I stored my money in a simple interest savings account I'd get a better return on my retirement fund.
+1 informative.
I gave it a try but it said my RAID 2+0 (stripe) configuration won't let me access the SMART data. Oh well. I'll just off load everything onto an external USB drive so when this PC dies in 2010 or 2011, I can immediately hop to my laptop without loss.
The DVD-R is probably the first to fail, as the dye on the disc fades and becomes unreadable.
.
I know you Americans are so in love with your wasteful lifestyle that you can rationalise to the most extreme not using innovations to cut down on consumption, like hybrid cars are gay and all the religious issues with CFLs.
Over the last five years or so, I've noticed more-and-more Europeans are acting like the so-called "rude Americans" they despise. Congratulations.
Anyway to address your point, a lot of the CFL complaints aren't coming from the U.S. but from the EU - due to the sudden requirement that any bulb over 60 must be a CFL. Europeans are discovering the inherent CFL flaws for themselves.
Okay this about the 5th post that said "Don't buy cheap; pay more for better quality." Well they bulbs I've used so far cost $1- for 3, or about $3.33 each. If I go to a $10 CFL then I'm not really saving any money versus buying a 20 cent incandescent at the grocery store. The energy savings don't compensate for the much-higher expense.
I've got two 60 watt bulbs in my kitchen ceiling, side-by-side. One is the standard incandescent and the other is a 15 watt "equivalent" CFL. You can tell just by looking that the CFL is not as bright even after an hour of usage.
Plus when it's cold, the incandescent is immediately bright while the CFL is so dim you can look directly at it, and not have to squint. It's turned-on but essentially dark. All my Philips CFLs are like that.
My first CFL which cost about $25 when I first got it (1990s) is also still working. It's the *current* CFLs that are being cheaply made($3 or less) which often die less than a year after purchase, or else provide POS dim lighting.
.
>>>There's a big difference between religion and relying on a reasonably unbiased testing company like consumer reports.
Yes that's true, but if you've got 1 million people scattered around the nation complaining about premature CFL failures, it's kinda foolish to sit there and say, "Unless I read it in Consumer Reports it didn't happen." That kinda of response reminds me of when hundreds of thousands of Toyota minivan engines started failing due to oil overheating/sludging. Toyota too refused to believe the evidence right in front of their faces. Like an ostrich sticking it head in the sand. (Then the U.S. government stepped-in and basically forced Toyota to replace the engines for free, or else face prosecution.)
>>>Your bias against CFLs approaches religion more.
I can't help that CFLs have frequent failures. I started-out telling everyone, "Buy CFLs; reduce your electricity usage and save money." Then I got hit with the reality of CFLs failing all over the place, not just in my house, but all over the place. I started in one position, and changed the other as evidence mounted. Any good engineer does the same when he observes an obvious flaw in a machine or design. Only a fool would continue to say "CFLs are great" in the face of mounting evidence that they are not.
At this point, having observed first hand the flaws, I think incandescents are superior over CFLs. Yeah they use a *little* more wattage, but their very simplicity (a glowing resistor) makes them extremely robust for a wide, wide range of applications.
>>>"No thank you" next time I travel and they ask to search
Good luck with that. The guy in this audio recording tried the same tactic, first with the TSA and then some cops, when they demanded to search his cash box ("Where'd you get all this money?"). They had no constitutional warrant, but still they said they can stop Him from entering the airplane. Laws don't matter when the uniformed men on the street can detain you at will.
10-minute version (unedited) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEJpzVPmih0
3-minute version (edited) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMB6L487LHM
I think it's funny when one of the guards says, "You act like a child." No. He's acting like a Man standing-up for his inalienable rights.
What good is a laptop without one? My own laptop, even when plugged into AC, won't start without a battery.
>>>We replaced all the hall lights in the dorms with 13 watt and 20 watt CFL's
CFLs? Or just standard fluorescent tubes? The halls in Penn State's dorms were all ~3 feet long tube-lights, not CFLs
So how many billions of dollars will U.S. and EU citizens waste trying to get their wiring up to spec? Sounds like the typical "penny wise; dollar foolish" paradigm. Rather than helping save money or the environment, I predict CFLs will end-up being worse.
And as you (and others) are telling these stories about Unsatisfactory CFLs, the environmentalists are going "La la la we can't hear you."
I bought a hybrid car are few years ago, and of course started hanging-out with our green-thinking people, and it amazes me how close-minded these types are. If I say something like, "my car's battery drained empty last week," or "Yeah my CFLs only lasted 6 months," they literally start insulting me and saying I'm at fault. They don't want to hear anything negative.
So "la la la" they go with their fingers stuck in their ears.
Reminds me of some religious types. "If it ain't in the book, I don't believe it."
I have 3 Lights of America CFLs laying right next to me. They started flickering only a few months after install, and died less than a year later. They should have lasted at least 5 years according to the warranty.
My GE CFLs come on nice-and-bright but they are limited in usage, because they are "swirls" and most of my lights don't accept swirls. They require traditional round bulbs.
My Philips CFLs provide that nice round bulb, but they are slow to reach full brightness, which is rather annoying. The 60-watt-equivalent bulb hanging upside-down in my kitchen is sometimes so dim, it looks like a brown dwarf star... barely any light at all.
In brief:
- CFLs hate temperature extremes. CFLs hate dimmers. CFLs hate being turned on and off.
- The savings on CFLs is trivial. I'm not seeing smaller monthly bills.
- In fact I'm actually *wasting* money because of failed experiments with the LOA and Philips bulbs.
We've not being seeing widespread failure of Ipods or other keydrives, even though they use the same F-RAM technology. I'm kinda surprised to hear any reports of failure in the new solid state PC drives, unless it's an issue of making the cells too small to be reliable.
Aside - I have two traditional hard drives in my PC. They've been spinning almost-nonstop since 2003. Any idea how much longer I have until they crash?
Aside #2 from the Summary -
- The savings on CFLs is trivial. I might switch my bulb from 40 to 10 watts, but I still have a 10,000 watt heat pump running. I'm not seeing smaller monthly bills.
- CFLs hate temperature extremes. CFLs hate dimmers. In practical terms this means CFLs can not be used in 80-90% of present fixtures, like those that are enclosed (heat kills CFL electronics) or outside (too cold to light) And I bought a so-called "dimmable CFL" which died 5 minutes after I installed it in my living room dimmer switch.
- CFLs hate being turned on and off. Rapid cycling makes them die even faster than an incandescent bulb (as stated in the summary). So you've spent 5 times as much for a bulb than doesn't last any longer.
- CFLs have a warm-up time. The 60-watt-equivalent bulb hanging upside-down in my kitchen is sometimes so dim, it looks like a brown dwarf star... barely any light at all. It takes 3-4 minutes to finally reach full brightness.
All Linus did was provide *initial quality* of the gadget. That tells us nothing about long-term user. Perhaps his shiny new Intel drive will fail next year.
Aside -
I have two traditional hard drives in my PC. They've been running almost-nonstop since 2003. Any idea how much longer I have until they crash?
Oh definitely. AFTER the debt is paid-off, then I'd cut the taxes. It doesn't make sense to cut taxes while you're still carrying 11 trillion dollars in Chinese loans, but after they're paid off, then yes reduce taxation.
That's precisely how Rome transformed into a feudal society. The lower and middle classes, unable to pay their taxes, sold their property and themselves to wealthy landlords. Over about 200 years time the landlords became "lords" and the people living on the land became "serfs".
The summary I submitted originally said, "Its advent in 1995 was a sign of the rising 'Internet for everyone' era, when most users connection speeds were a mere 14.4 or 28.8k." It was specific.
Well I just bought an AMD X2 desktop for $300. If I could get Max OS 10.6 to run on that machine, rather than buy the $1100 Macintosh, then YES apple should be worried. That would represent a major loss in income for their company.
>>>Funny, then, that the method of travel which you insist is the safest actually results in the most deaths per mile traveled...
Yes but *per trip* the car is safer. I want to know what are my odds of dying every time I sit inside a car, train, or plane. The odds for the car *for each trip* is lower.
I just watched the recent CSI Miami, about tainted food, and Horatio didn't give his imfamous line! I was so disappointed. Maybe I can make one up.
This sounds like...
*puts on sunglasses*
Good thing there wasn't an emergency radio announcement like, "There's a plane heading straight for you. Raise altitude 10,000 feet."
- Bus driver texting rear-ends a car
- Subway/metro driver using cellphone rear-ends another train in D.C. - kills several passengers
- Airplane drivers using laptops - fortunately nothing happened but it could have. A few years ago the same event caused a plane to miss a runway and killed most of the passengers.
I prefer to have my own car, with my own hands on the wheel, because I trust myself more than I trust some underpaid stranger. I'll take an airplane if it's long-distance, but if it's within 1-2 day's drive (Example Oklahoma City to Baltimore) then I'll just do it myself.
"That's the same thing I do to your Mom! Zing!
"That's what she said. Hahahaha." - Michael from the Office